April 1, 2015

Meg Pokrass

Amorous

"No, this time
I'm really listening," she said. At least she pretended to listen while
her husband talked openly about how much he wanted to sleep with his yoga
teacher and why this was better than okay, very life affirming, and very
freeing. He was a psychiatrist and considered himself to be
"mindful". He drank chia water and ate Buddha bars. He fasted on
liquid greenery. He was in tip-top shape.

She imagined a leggy young woman doing a headstand naked in front of him and
could not entirely focus as her husband explained to her the benefits of being
an active, polyamorous metrosexual.

It was true, she was not very mindful. She didn't really think it mattered. She
was forty years old and nothing about her would change. She'd given up trying
to be skinny and adorable for him since her foot shattered like glass under a
Segway in Golden Gate Park on the Fourth of July. These days, her lips were
cracked and her pelvis felt cold.

She tried to imagine what an incredibly flexible young woman might see in her
husband, a man with glasses so thick they deserved curtains. A man with
hemorrhoids who could not decide if he liked beets in salad, who cleared his
throat compulsively at the movies and had trouble looking directly at waiters.

"Let's talk
about this amorous thing later, discuss it further," she said. "I'm
sorry for making such quick assessments and shit."

"Okay dokey," he said. "Running late now. Be a good girl."

She spooned with her cat
as soon as he left. She enjoyed the sensation of her own breathing folded into
the deep purr.

CP

The stories of Meg
Pokrass have appeared in over 200 literary magazines and numerous anthologies,
including Flash Fiction International. Two story collections, Damn
Sure Right and Bird Envy are available now, as is
her novella, My Very End of the Universe, which is included in Five Novellas-in-Flash from Rose Metal
Press. Another collection, The Dog Looks Happy Upside Down, is
due out from Etruscan Press in 2016.